


Summer Sky (Tentative Title)

by MoonyKat



Series: West [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Experimental Style, Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, M/M, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 15:32:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5253593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonyKat/pseuds/MoonyKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nevin feels as though he knows these curiously strange people. In fact he knows that he knows them, like he knows his hands are quick and his anger is quicker. He feels it in the core of himself where all of his remembrances, and the humming, and the ideas come from. He knows them just like he knows the storm is coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Sky (Tentative Title)

_Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."  
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen._

The land before him stretches in the sunlight, a giant cat that purrs in the heat of the sun. There are no clouds overhead, but Nevin knows, like he knows his eyes are brown and his hair is black, that a storm is coming. Green grass sways in a gentle breeze he can't feel through his clothes, and there are no trees in sight, no hills or streams or bushes or flowers, just green green grass. 

He moves because he can't not move, the curiosity is insatiable and he's never let himself resist finding the answers to questions. He hates to crush the long perfect blades of grass beneath his boots (where did he get them from?), but the idea of what lies beyond this field has his feet moving before he even knows he's moving them to. The sun in the sky should be blazing but he only feels a gentle warmth on the exposed skin at his neck, hands, and face. He keeps walking. Maybe if he keeps walking North (he thinks) he can find shelter from the approaching storm. 

For what feels like an eternity of moving in one direction, he decides that north (and he's sure that that is the direction he is moving in, he knows it, like he knows his eyes are blue and his hair is brown) is not the direction he needs to be going. 

He stands for the longest time, waiting for something to happen, for some sign from above (he is sure that signs come from above and not from below, the green green grass is too perfect to be hiding signs) to guide him to where he needs to be. For hours (time is fluid he knows but not so fluid that it can evaporate in the sun) he waits, listening to the rustle of the perfect grass in the gentle breeze that he cannot feel, and he suddenly decides that West is the direction he is meant to go. West has always been the direction of explorers and intrepid people. He remembers that he used to travel. He remembers how he once braved a cold, grass-less, directionless void and discovered the universe which is wide and fathomless like all things are before they are quantified and categorized and known. 

He travels West for long time, enough time to grow weary of walking West, and yet not so long that he is weary of walking. He hums to himself a song that he distantly remembers being sung by someone. He brings his hands to his throat to feel the vibrations of his vocal chords. His hands and wrists are what he likes most about himself he remembers. His hands have moved over keyboards, control panels, soft skin, and shoe laces and they are as quick and impetuous as his mind is (which was quicker? The hand or the mind? He has never answered those particular questions). Looking up at the sky with his hands at his throat, he knows the storm is near, like he knows his tongue is red and his mouth is pink. 

As he continues to walk he eventually sees something in the distance. From where he is the something is a dot, a blackish dot-ish something against the green green of the grass and the clear, cloudless blue of the sky. He moves his feet faster and stops humming because humming is taking up energy that he would rather use moving. The blackish dot-ish something eventually becomes less dot-ish and far more large-ish as he approaches it. 

Closer and closer his feet move him through the green green grass until he eventually realizes that the something is a train. It is not a full train with dining cars and shipping cars, but the head end, the pilot jutting out in front like the head of a battering ram. 

And finally he is close enough to touch it! The good thing about quick, impetuous hands, he muses to himself, is that they can quickly and impetuously move out of the way at the first sign of trouble. He trusts his hands and so he places them both on the side of the train. He is almost surprised to feel cool metal beneath his fingers instead of hot rumbling metal like that of a train ready to depart. Looking down, he sees something even more surprising. There are no wheels and there are no tracks. Curiouser and curioser. 

"What is he doing, Garrenfeld?" Turning quickly, Nevin sees that he has an audience. 

An older man and a young woman stand at the front of the train staring at him with suspicion on their faces. The older man looks a little like a bear, brown and hairy all over except for a strangely black nose and twinkling russet-colored eyes. His shabby clothes, covered in lint and fuzz and possibly his own fur, give him a sloppy and uncaring appearance. A little awkwardly, Nevin directs his gaze instead to the young woman only to be met with the largest eyes Nevin has ever seen. They take up nearly half of her face and are so very red is looks as though she has been crying for weeks. In sharp contrast to her bedraggled and furry companion she wears a clean shirt and pants covered in strange moving letters and shapes in truly fantastical colors. An entire alien novel written in shining blues, magenta, oranges, and silver swirling around her slim torso and legs, Nevin thinks staring at the vortex of rainbow gibberish. Her hair is pinned to the back of her head with what looks like a metal bird stretching its wings out and lifting its head into the sky, as through preparing to lift the woman off of the ground. He assumes that the feet of the bird are the clips that keep her brown hair from spilling free and falling into her abnormally large eyes.

"Tell me your name!" The furry man yells and gestures emphatically at Nevin. 

"Now, Marshy, don't scare the boy," the young woman, Garrenfeld apparently, places a gentling hand on Marshy's arm. 

"Fine," Marshy signs,"but I was told that no one would be here! I expect his name at least!" Marshy's fur seems to be on end and after his diatribe he resembles an irate ball of fur with glittering eyes and a twitching button black nose.

Nevin feels as though he knows these strange people. In fact he knows that he knows them. Just like he knows his hands are quick and his anger is quicker. He feels it in the core of himself where all of his remembrances, and the humming, and the ideas come from. He knows them just like he knows the storm is coming.

Removing his hands from the side of the train he turns to face them. "My name is Nevin," he says and he is surprised by the pain in his own voice. Why should his voice carry so much pain, he wonders. When he hummed earlier it only carried sound, but now his voice carries a pain and a memory that he cannot identify. 

Marshy and Garrenfeld gasp and look at one another, twinkling russet eyes meeting large red ones. 

"Oh my goodness!" Garrenfeld exclaims.

"My god!" Marshy yells. 

And suddenly the storm is upon them. 

\---  
He comes out of nowhere it seems, skin black and shiny like oil. He appears between Nevin and the strange couple, grinning widely and staring at Nevin like Nevin knows he stares at numbers, curious and intent. His eyes are almond shaped and brown, but the teeth... the teeth are those of a predator, the incisors enormous and white protruding from between slick black lips. 

The storm that Nevin cannot name steps toward him and Nevin stumbles back so quickly he runs straight into the side of the train, jarring his back and shoulders painfully. 

Distantly he hears Garrenfeld scream and Marshy yelling loudly. His world narrows down to those eyes and those teeth. Eyes and teeth. Suddenly the creature, the storm, something in him insists, is right up against him, naked body bracketing him against the side of the train. 

He doesn't have room to struggle, not in his head and not in the space the creature allows him. His thoughts tumble and crash against one another in his head. _'I know him, but he's - oh God, so close, why is he-'_ his thoughts grind to a halt when the creature, instead of biting him nuzzles the side of his neck. 

"After all these years...." Nevin hears Garrenfeld say. "After so long... the storm is calm." Her voice is shaky and weak but for Nevin, sound has been amplified and it sounds like she's yelling right in his ears. 

"Shut up Garrenfeld," Marshy yells. "You know what this means and you know what we have to do now. We can't-" Marshy cuts himself off sharply and turns toward Nevin where the creature is holding him against the side of the train. 

Nevin feels himself calming, the panic from earlier fading into a sort of caution. And anger. 

Suddenly he pushes himself and the creature away from the train, dislodging the gentle grip of the storm causing the creature to growl and shift and turns to face Marshy and Garrenfeld. 

"What is this thing and what are you both talking about?!" The creature, sensing his mood, begins to growl more but strangely moves its hands until they are twisted in Nevin's shirt. Nevin can feel the core of himself heating with the anger he feels, the emotion rising within him trying to anchor itself into his words and his actions. 

Garrenfeld speaks first, darting nervous glances between creature and Marshy. "That is the storm, Nevin. You don't recognize it?" Nevin looks at the creature again. Naked and animal-like the storm is nothing like Nevin has ever seen. Surely if his eyes had seen it he would know it like he knows so many other things? He'd known it was coming, but he certainly hadn't anticipated this strange thing now clinging to him like a child. 

"No, I don't recognize it and I don't know what's going on here!" The anger makes him yell, but at least now his voice is not full of pain anymore.  
Marshy moves in front of Garrenfeld as though shielding her from Nevin's words. "I find it difficult to believe that you don't know this storm," Marshy sounds incredulous and the fur on his face bristles in annoyance. "No one knows what happens when the storm is calm, but everyone knows that calm storms simply do not exist, but that is a calm storm," he points a hairy finger at the creature but his eyes don't leave Nevin's. "You calmed the storm and everything else... well everything else doesn't matter right now." 

Nevin considers shoving the creature, the storm, away from him and running, the anger hot in veins, but something stops him. Maybe it's Garrenfeld's eyes, wide with hope, or maybe it's the careful, gentle grip of the creature's hands on his shirt. Or maybe, just maybe it is the fact that, like the train behind him, he has no tracks to follow. Well, that and he's never let himself resist finding answers to questions.


End file.
